


roll and roll and roll,

by vexedcer



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: (post a4 too in theory), Angst, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), ThorBruce Week, Thunder and Lightning, bruce is trying so damn hard, their relationship isnt super clear, theyre as close to dating as u can be without dating, theyre in the in between phase. theyll get there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 10:40:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15555921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vexedcer/pseuds/vexedcer
Summary: He’s been bottling this up for a year, hiding all of his pain behind smiles that only look hollow in Bruce’s memory. He had to watch everyone celebrate the return of their loved ones with the knowledge that his people would never come back. He’s carried this around with him, until now, breaking point as the clouds wretched themselves open and he yearned for some kind of relief. He poured it out from the sky and it still isn’t enough.(a storm makes thor have the mental breakdown he needs. bruce tries his best.)





	roll and roll and roll,

**Author's Note:**

> written for thorbruce week day three: comfort. this is the only one i've managed to finish and im like. not happy with it but i finished it so here you go. also its sad. im sorry i keep making thor sad. i rlly am.

The thunder storm isn't a surprise - the thick air of New York had been forecasting it for a while, and Bruce knows that waiting for the weather to break has made Thor edgy. He tries not to interfere with the weather as much as possible because they don't exactly know the widespread effect it has on the environment, and they’d rather be cautious.

Lightning splits the sky, piercingly bright as it's reflected across the glass paneled lab and it's followed by a period of dark as the next roll of thunder already starts. The lab, of course, is well lit but the lightning is brighter and it almost feels dark when the flash fades out.

It's been going for hours, and Bruce is looking forward to the humidity lowering a touch. The AC is on full blast everywhere in the compound, but he still feels swaddled by the heat somehow, tired and lethargic. If he spends any time outside, like his walk from the personal areas of the compound to the lab (it's faster to walk across a stretch of grass and enter through the side door than navigate through the corridors of a giant maze he's only just learnt the layout of) and his hair always gets frizzy. He doesn't exactly care about his appearance at the best of times, but he's allowed have one thing that annoys him.

But for the last while it feels like there's never an end to the bellows of the thunder, all moving together in one overlapping crescendo of rumble after rumble. The storm is right on top of them, it seems, but the storm was cast for the city and they should just be sitting on the peripherals, wet and loud but mostly unscathed. He briefly fears that the lightning strikes could hit something - and then forgets it. Tony probably accommodated for this, especially since one of their friends is literally a guy who creates this kind of weather out of his hands. 

They've done some tests on Thor's lightning, and it's not all that different from normal Earth lightning. The one thing they've found that is different, the minutely and barely there difference is the rumble. There's a pattern if you know what to listen for, and Bruce has listened to the recordings enough to pick it up without realising.

And maybe Bruce is over thinking, as he tends to do sometimes, but the more he listens the more it sounds like the specific melody of Thor's bursts. The idea makes him uneasy for some reason.

It's mostly because he's pretty sure Thor didn't get up this morning, or at least he wasn’t up when Bruce got out of bed. He’s a chronically early-riser, and a bit messy. A half-filled coffee pot and the dust from the muesli he likes gathering on the counter makes it easy to track his path around their shared quarters, the chair at the table not quite pushed in straight, and a mug in the sink instead of the dishwasher. It’s easy to tell that he hadn’t been up, but Bruce brushed it off as he just slept in. He gets up and trains every morning, and Bruce thinks he deserves a break if he wants one.

The thunder continues to roll and roll and roll, unrelenting. Bruce looks away from the window and down at the data in front of him. It’s hard to get him away from it usually, but his brain keeps following the rhythms in the cracks as they crash. It’s distracting. It’s worrying.

Maybe Thor’s just letting go. He hasn’t had free reign of his powers for a while, especially to this extent so maybe he’s just getting rid of the energy. He’s energetic and not being able to use his powers must make him antsy.

But - he keeps coming back to the empty coffee pot this morning, the clean counter, and Thor’s closed bedroom door, and he feels an anxious feeling mounting.

It would be okay to check on him, right? It would take him twenty minutes at absolute most, and ease his mind. He could come right back to his work when he saw that everything was fine.

Everything was not fine, he immediately knows as soon as he steps into their shared quarters. The thunder sounds vicious here, wind howling against the roof like a beast trying to get inside, rain flowing almost as if from a pipe along the windows, the light almost blinding. This is the centre of this storm. Thor’s door is ajar just the slightest.

He’s curled loosely in the sheets, facing the window with his back to the door. The lightning lines his silhouette, and - he looks small. Thor is big in stature and personality, but his hunched shoulders and the stillness make him seem fragile almost.

Bruce makes sure that the door creaks when he pulls it more open and shuts it quietly, but still enough to announce his presence. Thor doesn’t move. Bruce sits on the empty side of the bed, vaguely awkward and uncomfortable as the silence continues besides the weather outside.

“I know I’m not great at emotions,” he starts, having to clear his throat when it crackles and stumbles. He doesn’t even know if Thor can hear him over the thunder, if he’s even properly conscious in the centre of this apparent breakdown, or if he’s completely lost in each lightning strike as it hits the rod on the roof. “But, uh, if you - ? I know a lot about being angry and depressed, so if you want to talk about it, then - you can.”

He winces. He’s said so little and already he feels vulnerable. He thinks back to telling Tony that he doesn’t have the _temperment_  for this kind of thing, _not that kind of doctor, not his training_ , but somehow he worries what might happen if he leaves Thor alone. From what they manage to get out of him after Wakanda, and how everything came to be on his side of the cosmos, he was reckless, the kind of reckless that is means you care less and less about getting out of it the further you go in.

The thunder slows a little. It’s still roaring, but the beats are getting slower, silence between the rolls growing enough that each thunder and lightning is it’s own and not overlapping any longer. They’re quiet. Thor doesn’t move.

“I feel -” Thor says with a kind of awful hollowed voice, like everything that ever made him _Thor_ was sucked out and stretched thin. He lets out a small huff of breath. “I feel bad,” he finally gets out. He sounds defeated. It makes something in Bruce ache.

“Okay,” Bruce says, and wracks his brain for anything the many well-meaning but very unsuccessful therapists from his youth said. Then he discards it because the methods of understanding mental health has changed since the 70’s and 80’s. “What’s making you feel bad?” he hazards. God, he is _not_ qualified for this, he is _the least amount qualified any one person could be._

Thor doesn’t answer at first. The rate of the thunder is holding steady, two seconds between rumbles distinctly with Thor’s stylised pattern still present.

“My people are gone.” Bruce looks down at Thor’s prone figure, the curve of his cheek where it’s turned away and a fan of hair finally grown back to the length that seemed proper spread over the pillow. “There are a few out there, but Asgard is gone as we knew it. Thanos killed the last of my people and then half of all life in some supposed bid to help the universe, and I couldn’t stop him. I failed them.”

Bruce feels heavy. How do you console a man for the loss of everything he had? His people, his home, his family, and then half his friends on top of that, gone to dust before their eyes. The _Snap_ , as they’re calling it now, was a year ago and it’s been six month ago since they restored those who Thanos took with just a flick of his fingers, but everyone that Thanos killed without the gauntlet stayed dead. Heimdall and Loki and everyone Thor ever loved are gone.

He places a hand on Thor’s shoulder in some vain attempt at comfort, hoping maybe it does something. Thor sinks into the mattress, the fight leaving his body. A single large hand comes up on covers his own, caloused and gripping tightly with a desperate desire to feel tethered, anchored to something here.

“You didn’t fail them,” Bruce finds himself saying, throat suddenly thick. He needs Thor to know. “You didn’t. You’re a good man, and we can’t win every fight, especially not against some magic megalomaniac with the most powerful tool in creation ever.” Thor’s hand grips tighter, bordering on painful.

He’s been bottling this up for a year, hiding all of his pain behind smiles that only look hollow in Bruce’s memory. He had to watch everyone celebrate the return of their loved ones with the knowledge that his people would never come back. He’s carried this around with him, until now, breaking point as the clouds wretched themselves open and he yearned for some kind of relief. He poured it out from the sky and it still isn’t enough.

“You didn’t fail them - you _avenged_ them. Thanos can’t hurt anyone else anymore because of you.” Thor’s shoulder is shaking, his breath stuttering. He turns over and buries his face in the side of Bruce’s thigh. Bruce thinks he might be shaking too, but the Hulk is quiet for now.

This is all on him.

He doesn’t know where to go from here, Thor shuddering apart under his hand, holding onto him for dear life. He places his hand over his neck, trying to replicate the action he saw between many Asgardians in their time on the Statesman, even several times between Thor and Loki themselves in their rare softer moments. It always seemed intimate and private, like Bruce was infringing when he saw it but right now he hopes that it’s a comfort.

Thor presses his face harder into Bruce’s leg, hidden by the denim and the darkness of the room. The weather picks up again outside, a channel for Thor’s grief to which Bruce is bearing witness.

He cups his hand tighter and hopes that the storm will have blown over by morning.

**Author's Note:**

> [my main blog](http://vexedcer.tumblr.com/) [my writing blog](http://reckless-compassion.tumblr.com/) \- come say hello or yell at me for making thor sad. both are valid.


End file.
